Author Description

"Our first task is to gain clarity on the notion of the "human act" (actus humanus), which is at the heart of Aquinas's action-theoretical project. What does Aquinas understand by this term? To answer this question, it will be convenient to proceed in two steps. First, we need to understand what makes a human act an act, 'act' being, as I noted in the Introduction, a broad term referring to any kind of power-exercise, according to Aquinas. This requires us to say something about Aquinas's general metaphysics of powers and hylomorphism (1.2-1.3). In a next step, given the broad scope of the term 'act' in Aquinas, we need to consider what makes something a specifically human act. Here we need to consider how Aquinas differentiates human acts from other power-exercises in nature (1.4-1.6). As we will see, Aquinas appeals to the aetiological factor of choice to do so. We will also see that choice as well as the human act itself are hylomorphic composites, for Aquinas, and that the human act explained by choice is intentional and free"--